Bored pearl
by xAerrokx
Summary: A pearl to a ship captain is bored, and occupies herself by admiring architecture.


Wow. This sure is boring.

Pearl looked around at the hall. She had been ordered to wait outside by her mistress, Tsavolite, who was in a meeting. Of course there weren't any chairs. No, pearl was just expected to... Stand there. And do nothing. For hours.

She couldn't exactly find a way to entertain herself, either. Every now and again, someone would walk by, or walk out, or walk into the meeting. She had to be seen as perfectly calm, composed. She could handle the standing... It was the inactivity that she hated.

All she had was the fine hall she stood in. The walls were a bright, vibrant green, with streaks of yellow all about, highlighting the pillars. The ceiling rose up, coming to a point, and amongst the arches shone crystals, bringing light to the corridor.

Pearl loved architecture. Frequently, it was all she had to occupy her mind. Though she spent most of her time aboard a ship, it, like all gem constructions, was built to sparkle and shine. There was no closet too small, no corridor too insignificant to be polished like fine jewelry, as if any one could serve as a monument to the accomplishments of gemkind.

It wasn't like she had anything else to do. Her mistress, Tsavolite, was a captain. Not a particularly illustrious one, commanding a simple freighter, but a captain nonetheless. And though there were always forms to fill, licenses to keep current, reports to write... She wasn't the type to include pearl, or delegate in general, much less to a gem so low.

So pearl did what pearls are supposed to do. She held things. She greeted people intending to speak with Tsavolite, made sure they had an appointment, showed them in, and stood around looking pretty.

Seems like that last bit was pretty much all she did, or at least that's how it felt to her. All the free time she could possibly want, standing around in a hall, doing nothing. Doing nothing as gems walked past who would never pay her any mind unless she was doing something wrong. A living statue.

As much as she loved staring at a wall for hours on end, even that got boring after a while. She wished she could walk around, explore the ship. Admire all the thought and effort the designers must have put into making the ship beautiful, outside and in, while still functional. Practical, even.

Practicality came first, of course. This was no fancy cruise ship for a diamond or high ranking court member. This was a freighter. It was meant to carry things to and fro, and that came first. That made the fact that it was as pretty as it was all the more amazing.

But she couldn't explore. She had "duties" to perform, and sightseeing wasn't really a thing in gem society, even at the highest levels. It was certainly not an option for a gem such as pearl.

For all their pride, beauty, and grace, gems sure didn't stop to appreciate it very often. All that effort spent towards making every inch of their creations more beautiful than the last, and nobody even seemed to care!

What was the point? Even the higher ranked gems pearl had encountered never seemed to look up from their tablets, stop their conversations, or take so much as a moment to take stock of their surroundings. It didn't make sense.

It seemed to be all about keeping up appearances rather than beauty. Nobody wanted to look good, they wanted to avoid looking bad. Great care was taken to ensure the entire ship was cleaned of anything that might have been tracked in and polished to a mirror shine. Agates would create a terrible fuss otherwise, and on the few times something was less than perfect when a more important gem came, it was always pointed out and counted against the crew.

Pearl was very glad that cleaning was not one of her primary duties when that happened, though she had been ordered to pick up a mop from time to time. Sometimes she might have made a mistake, lost focus, or have failed to show proper respect, and be punished with cleanup duties. Other times pearl was just the closest gem to whoever discovered the mess.

Sometimes, if something especially bad had happened, the entire crew (including pearl) would be punished by being forced to scrub the ship from top to bottom. This was no small task; the ship was fairly large and somewhat dense. Many areas were quite complicated to clean, but pearl really didn't mind. For one thing, it was something to do.

It was even challenging at times, in an enjoyable sense. While the vaulted ceilings of the ship's halls could prove tedious to polish, it was the maintenance shafts and engineering sections that proved the most difficult and dangerous. If procedures weren't followed properly, very bad things could happen.

Gems could be poofed, or worse. Naturally careful, pearl had never had a problem while cleaning these areas. Well, not one that was her own fault, at least. Other gems, however, were not so fastidious. One time, an entire squad of rubies managed to vent themselves into space when one scrubbed a control panel (which was SUPPOSED to be deactivated) a little too vigorously. Another time, a pair of Amethysts managed to get themselves poofed after falling onto a conduit that hadn't been powered down.

Pearl was grateful that the worst she had ever had to deal with was a mild shock. Though it had never happened aboard this ship, gems could be shattered if they didn't treat things like the ship's weapons, engines, or reactor with the proper respect. Even worse, ships could be lost with all hands in the event of a meltdown, though it was very rare.

Despite the danger, pearl found a special kind of beauty in these sections, too. Something about the wires zigzagging about to their destinations, individual parts working together to achieve their goal in harmony pleased her. It was orderly, and beautiful in it's practicality.

Just like the Diamond Authority.


End file.
